Real time transaction processing networks are generally comprised of two major components: transaction entry terminals (such as clients in a client-server computer network) and transaction management databases (servers). Transaction networks utilize different kinds of terminals and databases for different industries, such as banking and telecommunications. However, unlike the world's financial systems, no industry-wide standards have been adopted for inter-operability in the calling card industry.
Available calling card transaction networks use telephones connected to voice processing systems as terminals, wherein the voice processing system prompts for an account or PIN number (with an optional password). Large databases for transaction management are used to validate the account and prevent simultaneous use. Typically, the PIN or account numbers are either randomly assigned, or are picked by the consumer. Often the PIN number contains some portion of an existing telephone number. However, since there is no widely accepted standard for assigning account and PIN numbers, integrating various calling card networks to inter-operate has proven extremely difficult for the telecommunications industry.
With the advent of pre-paid telephone calling card services, database servers have been adapted to manage an active balance, with provisions to prevent the account balance from accruing a negative balance. Since pre-paid vouchers are typically sold at retailers and then discarded, the number of active accounts can number in the hundreds of millions. Extremely large, real time data processing and management requirements therefore provide an additional concern for the pre-paid market. Due to limitations of database technology very often multiple databases are required to manage the transaction volume, leading to inter-operability and data accuracy problems. There is therefore a need for expansion of the available database technology to accommodate growing transaction and data volume in the calling card and related industries.
The present invention is intended to address the shortcomings of the available transaction processing capabilities for Pre-Paid Calling Card (PPCC) networks, but is applicable to all transaction processing networks. Two particular shortcomings of available PPCC networks addressed by the present invention include: 1) the terminals' ability to determine and contact a database server for authorization/debit/credit of a specific account is not easily altered or updated; and 2) the terminals' ability to be made aware of and contact new database servers for expansion is not easily changed. This second shortcoming stems from two particular features of available transaction processing systems: first, the lack of dynamic redistribution of existing account data creates the need for downtime; and second, a knowledge of database specifics schemas) is required to interact with each database.
While the above issues are problematic for the all traditional transaction processing networks, they are especially difficult to overcome in PPCC networks because of the real-time aspects of the balance management requirements. Thus, it is nearly impossible to restructure a PPCC database off-line, and then post transactions to catch up to real time as is the practice in "post-pay" or legacy-based financial accounting situations.
Glossary
The following definitions and acronyms will assist the reader in comprehending the enclosed description of the present invention:
DTL Dynamic Transportable Logic; IE Information Element; IEC Information Element Collection; IP Internet Protocol; SS7 Signaling System Seven; OLTP On-Line Transaction Processing; Fragment A "sub-section" of a database; Host A single computing element; Cluster A group of computing elements; Network A group of clusters. comprising an entire operating network.